Teach Me a Lifetime

I didn't even understand what a variable is. Fucking teachers can really fuck you up. No matter how hard I thought about it, I wasn’t gonna get it. I couldn't do algebra. I’d never had a decent math teacher. I’m telling you. They led me down a dark and winding road, collectively hit me over the head, then left me in the bushes for dead. If that asshole wanted an answer from me, he’d better not hold his breath . . . or maybe he should’ve.

"Mr. Prince," I said, " I don't know the answer. I don't understand the problem."

"Hah!" He laughed at me in front of the whole class. All you guys looking at me.

"It's just as all the math faculty know, Christopher. You're lazy and you won't learn. Don't blame your teachers. Blame yourself. You don't try. And you won't."

Hey, in my dreams I always stood up and told Prince to go fuck himself. Then I'd walk out of the classroom, stride off into the sunset, and live happily math-less ever after. Or then I would become a superhero math-lete.

Peggy stares at me. We’re drinking beer at the new Kaka’ako Whole Foods Market. “You’re kidding me, Chris. That’s the most vivid memory you have of high school?”

I love our class reunions. We get to play games like this memory one. Who comes up with these topics?

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The Seven OrchidsISBN: 0-910043-73-633% OFF COVER PRICE!
Winner of the Hawai‘i Book Publishers Association Ka Palapala Po‘okela Honorable Mention Award for Excellence in Literature
The koa canoe is one of the most important symbols in Hawaiian culture today, a link between Hawai‘i's simpler past and its sophisticated present. Ian MacMillan takes us over to Moloka‘i where a crew of misfit paddlers—women who are dealing with alcoholism, divorce, depression, and more—find an old koa canoe stored in a rundown shed. In a powerful and gripping story centered around the canoe, MacMillan puts us in the boat with the crew. First, we train, and then we paddle in the world championship of outrigger canoe racing, the Moloka‘i to O‘ahu race. A symbol of life, the koa canoe changes each woman, helping her to refocus her life. As they cross Ka Iwi Channel, they leave their misfit status behind in the wake of the canoe. In the midst of his story, MacMillan thoroughly documents the sport of outrigger canoe paddling as only an insider could. He's been there and done that and we ride with him through one of the best accounts of paddling the channel in Hawaiian literature. The Seven Orchids entertains and educates us at the same time. You couldn't ask for more. — John Clark, author of six books on Hawai‘i's beaches